Haryana intensifies Yamuna cleanup for Chhath Puja 2025 with strict pollution checks, STP upgrades, and inter-departmental coordination.

Haryana is speeding up its promise to make the Yamuna Cleanup and safe before the Chhath Puja holiday. After a high-level review conference today led by Chief Secretary Sh. Anurag Rastogi, inter-departmental activities have picked up, with an emphasis on better infrastructure, stricter pollution control, and a continued push for ecological balance. The state’s proactive steps are meant to make sure that the thousands of people who will perform rituals along the river and its tributaries have a clean and safe place to do so.

The Chief Secretary stressed the need to keep an eye on Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) and Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) in the Yamuna watershed area at all times during the meeting. He told all Executive Engineers to personally make sure that these plants work properly until October 28, 2025. They must make sure that nothing breaks down and that all systems meet environmental regulations. The Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) has been told to send special flying squads to do surprise inspections at strange times. Junior Engineers and Sub-Divisional Engineers have been put in charge of keeping an eye on things all the time. He told officials to finish the whole list of STPs and CETPs, including those that are still being built, and to make a strategy for what to do next while making sure that the projects are finished on time.

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The Chief Secretary, Sh. Anurag Rastogi, said again that the state government is committed to keeping the Yamuna clean and free of pollution through strict monitoring and coordination across departments. He said that keeping rivers clean is both an environmental need and a social duty. He also said that Chhath Puja is a time to renew everyone’s efforts to safeguard nature and keep the environment in balance.

Sh. Rastogi told departments including PHED, HSVP, HSIIDC, GMDA, ULBD, and HSPCB to find industries that could release pollutants into the river or its drains and keep a close eye on what they do. He said that any changes to operational or monitoring data must be dealt with right away and in a strong way.

The Chief Secretary also looked over the plans to keep the Yamuna clean during the Chhath Puja celebrations. He told the Irrigation Department and the Urban Local Bodies Department to get rid of solid trash from drains and riverbanks right away. During the holidays, municipal corporations have been told to send enough people and machines to keep the ghats and riverbanks clean and open.

The Police, Municipal Corporations, Public Health Engineering Department, and Development and Panchayats wings will work together to stop people from dumping sewage or tanker garbage into the river for the next 15 days. The PHED will use tankers to pick up sewage and take it to existing STPs for treatment, as long as there is enough room. Deputy Commissioners and Sub-Divisional Magistrates will check that this is being done at the district level.

Sh. Rastogi also looked at how well STP projects were going in the Yamuna watershed area. He said that projects that can hold 107 million liters of water per day (MLD) should be done by March 2027.

During the conference, it was said that six irrigation projects using treated wastewater are going on in Behrampur, Kanheli, Karnal, Haikat Nagar, Shiv Colony, and Jattal Road in Panipat. Together, they can treat 158 million liters of water per day. These initiatives, which cost about ₹253 crore, are making steady progress, with work done at different sites ranging from 35% to 90%.

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Fencing construction is being done at 364 bridge sites across Haryana to keep people safe and safeguard the Yamuna and its tributaries. Sirsa (74), Kurukshetra (73), Charkhi Dadri (50), and Kaithal (37) have the most sites that have been found. Also, 79 ghats in 19 areas have been chosen for cleaning and upkeep. Of them, 40 old ghats have already been improved, while 39 new ones are being built. A lot of work is going on in Hisar, Karnal, Yamuna Nagar, and Sirsa to make sure that devotees have safe and clean places to worship during Chhath Puja.

The meeting was attended by Sh. Sudhir Rajpal, the Additional Chief Secretary for the Environment, Forests, and Wildlife, Sh. Vineet Garg, the Chairman of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, and Sh. Anurag Agarwal, the Additional Chief Secretary for Irrigation and Water Resources. All of the Deputy Commissioners of the districts were able to join in via videoconferencing.